The severity of the punishment is, in Xenophon’s mind, the measure both of its effects in deterring criminals, and of the character of the ruler inflicting it.
[423] Thucyd. iii, 47. Νῦν μὲν γὰρ ὑμῖν ὁ δῆμος ἐν πάσαις ταῖς πόλεσιν εὔνους ἐστὶ, καὶ ἢ οὐ ξυναφίσταται τοῖς ὀλίγοις, ἢ ἐὰν βιασθῇ, ὑπάρχει τοῖς ἀποστήσασι πολέμιος εὐθὺς, καὶ τῆς ἀντικαθισταμένης πόλεως τὸ πλῆθος ξύμμαχον ἔχοντες ἐς πόλεμον ἐπέρχεσθε.
[424] Thucyd. iii, 48.
[425] Thucyd. iii, 49. ἐγένοντο ἐν τῇ χειροτονίᾳ ἀγχώμαλοι, ἐκράτησε δ᾽ ἡ τοῦ Διοδότου.
[426] Thucyd. iii, 49. παρὰ τοσοῦτον μὲν ἡ Μυτιλήνη ἦλθε κινδύνου.
[427] Thucyd. iii, 50.
[428] Thucyd. iii, 50; iv, 52. About the Lesbian kleruchs, see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, B. iii, c. 18; Wachsmuth, Hell. Alt. i. 2, p. 36. These kleruchs must originally have gone thither as a garrison, as M. Boeckh remarks; and may probably have come back, either all or a part, when needed for military service at home, and when it was ascertained that the island might be kept without them. Still, however, there is much which is puzzling in this arrangement. It seems remarkable that the Athenians, at a time when their accumulated treasure had been exhausted, and when they were beginning to pay direct contributions from their private property, should sacrifice five thousand four hundred minæ (ninety talents) annual revenue capable of being appropriated by the state, unless that sum were required to maintain the kleruchs as resident garrison for the maintenance of Lesbos. And as it turned out afterwards that their residence was not necessary, we may doubt whether the state did not convert the kleruchic grants into a public tribute, wholly or partially.
We may farther remark, that if the kleruch be supposed a citizen resident at Athens, but receiving rent from his lot of land in some other territory,—the analogy between him and the Roman colonist fails. The Roman colonists, though retaining their privileges as citizens, were sent out to reside on their grants of land, and to constitute a sort of resident garrison over the prior inhabitants, who had been despoiled of a portion of territory to make room for them.
See, on this subject and analogy, the excellent Dissertation of Madwig: De jure et conditione coloniarum Populi Romani quæstio historica,—Madwig, Opuscul. Copenhag. 1834. Diss. viii, p. 246.
M. Boeckh and Dr. Arnold contend justly that at the time of the expedition of Athens against Syracuse and afterwards (Thucyd. vii, 57; viii, 23), there could have been but few, if any, Athenian kleruchs resident in Lesbos. We might even push this argument farther, and apply the same inference to an earlier period, the eighth year of the war (Thucyd. iv, 75), when the Mitylenæan exiles were so active in their aggressions upon Antandrus and the other towns, originally Mitylenæan possessions, on the opposite mainland. There was no force near at hand on the part of Athens to deal with these exiles except the ἀργυρόλογαι νῆες,—had there been kleruchs at Mitylênê, they would probably have been able to defeat the exiles in their first attempts, and would certainly have been among the most important forces to put them down afterwards,—whereas Thucydidês makes no allusion to them.